Stranger than Fiction (2006)

Synopsis: "This story is about a man named Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) and his wrist watch." That's the opening line of the film and that's what this film is really about. Harold is an IRS auditor and for those of you who don't know what an auditor is, I will explain it to you, because I didn't know what it was either. An auditor is a person who goes around investigating people who practice tax fraud. They work with numbers and people hate them. But Harold is a lovely person and there is no reason why anyone would hate him. In fact, there would be no reason for anyone to know that he exists at all because of the solitary life he leads. But someone knows him. As a matter of fact, someone knows him very intimately. And that person is the author writing his life as her story. The trick is that he can hear what she's typing and she mentions one day that Harold's death is inevitable. This freaks the hell outta Harold as it would for anyone who was told of their urgent death and goes on an adventure to find how he can stop from dying while learning how to live life along the way. Oh yeah, he falls in love too with the person he's auditing, Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal).

Should You Watch It? This is a quirky little film which is set up like a romantic comedy but it really isn't. It is really like a tragic comedy which is funny because those two genres are on the complete opposite sides of the spectrum but somehow this film does it. On a deeper level, this film talks a lot about living your life and society and even pokes fun at the government. But it does everything with a super light tone which makes it all fun. Even the sad parts are still fun! And who says the IRS is boring?!

Things to Watch Out For: All the nice little graphics that come on screen to show us Harold counting and calculating every small thing he sees. These graphics work nice in their function but it adds a bit of flavour since it's used in the credits and pretty much everywhere in the film where applicable. Emma Thompson's performance as Karen Eiffel is superb as well as she embodies the hermit writer in writer's block in a very stereotypical way but it works like the rest of the fim!


Things You Don't Expect: Just how effective good story telling can be to make you feel for a guy and make you invested in not only the hero but the antagonist as well. It seems to me, that in the beginning of the film, Karen Eiffel is the antagonist and that it was Harold's job to overcome her writing and find a way to live. But as the story progressed, the antagonist became less clear and by the end you're left scratching your head thinking about who the villain of the film is. In fact, everyone is their own villain which is a neat way to portray the theme that sometimes we're our worst own enemy. And the only way to live life to the fullest is to face our own fears about the possibility of failure.

Final Comments:
Story: 8.5 (Zach Helm)
Direction: 7.5 (Marc Forster)
Acting: 8.2
Cinematography: 7.8
Music/Sound: 7.2

Entertainment Value: 8.0